LG gram 17 2021 - No Audio drivers!

I received the above (Model 17Z90P) from Amazon last week

Did a clean install using latest Win10 ISO from Microsoft.
Let it perform all windows updates - which included most of the drivers.
However not the Audio drivers - it still shows as missing driver and red cross in system tray audio.
I have searched everywhere but unable to find any driver.
Someone on reddit ( https://www.reddit.com/r/laptops/comments/fxgtsh/lg_gram_17_2020_windows_10_audio_driver/) suggested installing LG Update Center - But it finds absolutely nothing (as per attached pic)

I am running out of ideas.... Any suggestions would be most welcome.

 

I'm facing the exact same problem. I got in contact with LG support on the 18/03/2021 and they're still trying to get it from an internal software team. If they get back to me with a download link I'll let you know.

 

Hi

I have managed to come right.

We need the LG update Centre software for the "P" at the end of the model. All are empty except: 14Z90P

Download the LG Update Centre for this model on LG website ( https://www.lg.com/us/support/software-firmware-drivers)

I uninstalled the old version and installed this download and then it picked up the missing drivers and after quite a few reboots the sound is working fine.

Hope it helps

 

Well done on finding the download. It was harder than it had any right to be. LG support are still looking for the driver....

 

The smarter thing for them to do would be to just have it be data driven and pull the laptop model from the BIOS and download the correct drivers from their repo based on what model it is.

 

maybe because the LG support folks do not know which kind of audio driver the LG 17Z90P uses (though I know for sure the older 17Z90N model uses Conexant audio drivers)

what kind of hardware device ID number is assigned to the "multimedia audio controller" device in the screenshot of your 1st post, pwpit? look at this site on how to check the hardware ID of a device in Device Manager.

 

I don't think this is an issue anymore for Windows but in Linux sound is still broken .
I installed sof-firmware on archLinux and sound started working for me.

sudo pacman -S sof-firmware

 

still very much an issue. Did a clean install of Windows 11 a few days ago and lost audio and function keys. Battery life is terrible and the graphics are choppy. Tried Windows 10 and was even worse (lost the track pad). LG Update Center doesn't show anything for Win 10 or 11. I've tried every driver I can find for gram 14, 16, and 17. I've also tried drivers directly from Realtek and Intel. Nothing.

Basically if you do a clean install you break your machine. This is insane. Only thing I can think to do now is to order a second unit, make a disk image, then flash that to my broken Gram, then return the second unit.

I can't believe how poor the support is for these machines.

 

Providing a factory disk image on a USB key should be something they do. I recall when I had my old 2014 Razer Blade 14 I contacted them and they sent me a recovery USB no questions asked for free.

Since like 2015-2016 I always back up all my machines with Macrium Reflect to my NAS.

 

You can install the LG update center, then download all drivers from within. Important thing is the Intel driver and set the screen refresh for battery, as it enables the lower c states

 

Did you do this on a fresh install or using restore? When I open update center after a fresh install it tells me all updates have been installed

 

Fresh of course. I could not be bothered with the LG junkware. I only used it to install the LG control Center, nothing else. I prefer Intel drivers from Intel itself

 

Thanks for the reply.

I didn't have any luck with this. In many cases the LG 17 2021 product listings don't even show this software as available. (The website doesn't show any software as being available in fact.) I followed the advice for using the Gram 14/16 product page downloads of Update Center but every time the software said "no updates needed/available". From a clean install of either Windows 10 or Windows 11 I could not find any method to install the necessary drivers. It left my system completely unusable.

Are you sure you were able to do a clean install on a Gram 14/16/17 from 2021?

To avoid having to return a second laptop I left the factory install image and manually removed the crapware. Everything is working well now so I've just decided to leave it as is until someone has a 100% safe way of a clean install.

When I get a second NVMe drive I'll try doing a clean install on it first to see if any of the methods mentioned work for me.

Do you have a direct link to the Update Center download you used?

 

Did you happen to make a restore point or clone from factory? I'm in the same position as you and am stuck out of country without the ability to send it in to LG to get it restored. Any help would be appreciated

 

TL;DR try this link first if you have the 2021 17 model:
https://liu.lge.com/LGUpdateCenter/Update/17Z95P/0000/data/LGUpdateCenter.exe

This appears to be the direct link to 2021 Gram 17 Update Center file. In case you have a different model though, hit Windows key, type "system information", then click on "System Summary" and check what it says under "System Model" on the right. Mine says "System Model 17Z95P-K.AAE8U1" but ignore anything starting with the "-". Replace my model number with yours in the URL above and that will hopefully download the right LG Update Center program and find the needed drivers and updates.


***

I'm out of country too now but back home. I can't make a restore image that I can share because I've already got all of my logins and services connected so I'm pretty sure that would be part of any image I make. When I get a second drive (waiting for price drops) I can try to do a factory reset and image the drive directly after that so that's basically clean, but I don't think I'll be able to do that for a few weeks.

In the meantime, I've looked through the contents of Program Files\LG Software and find some stuff that might be interesting for you. The Update Center log files contain a bunch of direct references to software packages in https://liu.lge.com/LGUpdateCenter/drvdata//drv/DC_14ZD95P/... My model is 17ZD95P so it seems there isn't a distinction between model sizes (at least for 14 and 17, not sure about 16). The logs identify my system as 17ZD95P so I'm pretty confident this true, especially based on what I read in different forums trying to fix the audio issue.

However, you can't browse the contents of that URL. This is an example of what's in the log. This is for the WLAN driver. (I didn't see any similar reference to audio, only the word audio in different strings associated with Intel. Otherwise I would share that direct package with you.)

INFO Server AddUpDataItem : WLAN
INFO Server AddItem :
OFF GetCurrentVersion :: reg,DriverVersion,22.70.0.6 install_check =
OFF GetCurrentVersion GetItemVersion :: 22.70.0.6
INFO GetFileSize Url : https://liu.lge.com/LGUpdateCenter/drvdata//drv/DC_14ZD95P/WLAN//WIRELESS_W1164_227006_11161411.zip
OFF GetFileSize = 23497943

If the link to the Update Centers above don't work, let me know. I can zip the entire LG Software directly and dump it on my Google Drive for you. I don't see any sensitive contents in the file, but I didn't look through everything.

 

Yes i downloaded the upgrade centre for another tiger Lake LG Gram and it installed just fine.

 

If anyone's looking for the software installed in Program Files\LG Software, here's a zip of mine: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-FFj1dxElUM-AQE_XPI4ONmy8mpKt-l8/view?usp=sharing